The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-05-15
An Advocate of Raising Its
Standard Of Veracity.
F. H. RICHARDSON'S ADDRESS
At the Georgia Medical Association
Banquet-His Plea OF Honesty
in Journalism.

|
Atlanta Constitution, sounded so clear
note on needed subject that it is give
entire. The remarks apply not only t
the press 10 general, but would be O
benefit to the medical press. The stand
ard of yeracity and honesty in medica
journals could we'll be raised withou
serious danger, and to the benefit of tn
profession.
''The Pr4sg: Aggressive, enterprising
sensational, indispensable; may its yer.
acity never grow less"
Concerning the terms of the first pro-
position of your toast, there can be nc
disputation, at least on this occasion. L
I do not naturally possess it, 1 can Dor
row from the traditions of my guild the
modesty to admit that the press is "ag-
gressive, enterprising, sensational, in
dispensable."
The only possible issue must, there
fore, be joined on your proposition, in
which the velvet of benevolent invoca-
ton hardly sheathes the claw of some.
what tigerish innuendo.
1.-The Yeracity of the press" If
were to proceed according to the ap-
proved fashions of the schools, should
| first attempt an analysis of veracity in
general. This would involve a consider
alton of the subject in its widest scope.
1t would include even the veracity of
the medical profession. Mr.. President,
do doctors always tell the TRUTH But
you are not on trial here. Wrapping
yourselves in that mantle of pharisaical
complacency which every profession is
too prone to wear, you tacitly assume a
virtue which you deny to the poor pub
lican, whom you have this evening ad-
mitted within your hospitable gates.
Before you condemn the press, beg
you to remember that veracity. in It's
essence, is q rare commodity in this sin.
stricken world. Too often have truth
and falsehood met and kissed each
other. Ia our affairs these strains are
so often intermingled, and the pure
blood of either line is so hard to find,
that Thomas Carlyle, as loyal lover of
the truth as ever lived, actually became
enamored of the personality of the most
Count Cagliostro he says: IF we can
doer, let US at least have the melancholy
pleasure of beholding a decided liar"
Icannot claim for the press the bene-
6t of this unique eulogIum. The fact is
that the press can tell the truth or its
opposite, Just as it pleases; and that
man has not yet been BORN who can prog
nosticate on q given occasion which 1t
will choose.
Charles Lamb said that Wordsworth
could write as good a play as Hamlet"
eff he had a mind to-" This press
could be as veracious as doctor, ''if it
had mind to-"
But, seriously, gentlemen, you must
remember what sort of world the press
has to deal with. Never was lover com.
PEELED to be more assiduous to his mis-
tress than is the press to the public
The public can demand and can get just
such newspapers as it wants. and it law
ishes its favors on some very bad ones.
l can imagine a higher incentive to
veracity in the press than the fact that
the English journal which, for several
generations past, has been most rell-
able, has been eclipsed in circulation, if
not in influence, by at least dozen of
its less scrupulOus contemporaries,
while the New York newspaper. which
stands first for veracity, ranks as low as
tenth in circulation. If veracity were
more popular the press would be more
veracious. 1 admit that this does not
excuse the press. If the public insists
on being wicked, the press cannot on
that account find justification for be-
ing wicked also, and it is but fair to ad-
NIT that just censure lies at the door of
the press in this matter. Some of our
rfofn
least reliable; some of our pureSt news
papers are dismally dull. Sometimes
people have way of making the truth
so unattractiye that do rot wonder at
the popularity of well spiced falsehood.
There is no reason why the journal of
the highest tone and the most incorrup.
tible principles should not also be the
brightest and most readable. We must
divorce truth from, stupidity and marry
her to enterprise. Bot there are many
things. about the press besides its devo-
tor. to veracity which are commend
able. The day of great editors, of gigan
tic and absorbing personalities. has
passed. The press is no longer a pre-
| tentious oracle. 1t has become q prac-
teal factor in government, in politics,
in thought in every direction. It per-
mestes society and peeps in at all its
proceedings. It tracks the lonely
| waste; it blazes the wild with the pio
neer; 1t penetrates the jungle with the
explorer; it cuts the ice of the arctic; il
plows the burning sands beneath the
line; the statesman cannot escape its
| vigils; the tramp is the subject of its
care; it stands beside the physician in
pestilence; it sits with the millionaire in
his palace; it swelters with the wretch
in his howell. Wherever men strive, and
suffer, and die, the N IN of the press is,
| or ought to be. Such tests develop in
him the frailties which are common to
humanity; they bring out in him the
strength and splendor which gives to
men their noblest virtues. Not always
among the names highest on the roll of
journalistic fame are these virtues most
illustriously developed. They were
lowly men of whom it was said that the
world was not worthy.
mind me of some instances of unher-
aided heroism which makes me Troud
that belong to the same clan that gave
their examples to the world.
/ remember poor Donovan who went
for London newspaper into the Sou :
dan that he might tell luxurious Eng
land what her army was doing in the
Il L. u l.